Recovery
by archivedfics2013
Summary: "It gets easier." It would never get easier, not for her. Nicky/Jason, an insight into their relationship both before, during and after the trilogy.


It's 1 AM, I haven't ate or drank anything that hasn't been packed full of either sugar, caffeine or both all day, and I had a huge glass of coke less than half an hour ago, and this idea has been haunting me for a while.I don't own anything Bourne-related. Shocked? Me too.

Nicky/Jason, because that's just how it is in my head.

… … …

"_It gets easier."_

To her knowledge, that was the only time he had ever lied to her. They both knew that they were empty and meaningless words, but she appreciated the gesture, or whatever it was. It had never been easy for her, and it was only harder now.

She had met him near the beginning of Treadstone. She was his handler; she was all of their handlers. She was their psychologist as well, so she saw them all reasonably frequently. They came to her to receive assignments, and to tell her what symptoms they had. In the beginning, he was just like all the others. They were all cold, deadly, and they had no emotion. They were killing machines, and any vestiges of human they had left in them were covered up because they were considered signs of weakness. Headaches, nausea, insomnia and schizophrenia were not uncommon, headaches and insomnia being the primary concerns as a whole. Bourne had those, and she tried to help him with it.

For some reason, he was different to the others to her; maybe it was that he called her by her name, or that he was a little more relaxed around her than the others, or perhaps it was simply because he was a good-looking man with a nice body, and her occupation didn't really allow her to get out much to be able to appreciate that often.

But they started having meetings at her apartment instead of in the office nearby Conklin had set up, and then she knew how he liked his coffee (black) and that they both preferred to sit on the couch rather than at the dining room table, or that neither could quite understand what the other was going through, but there were no secrets, and there was no one else to talk to.

It was when he started coming over a few times a week, just to have some sort of human contact, that he asked her to call him Jason, rather than just 'Bourne'. _I'm not often anything more than a machine, _he said. _But when I am, it's always with you."_ So she called him Jason, even though she knew that getting attached was against regulation, and even though she had never wanted to get attached, and even though the other men were just 'Paton' and 'Draper' to her. And she would go to his apartment, and he would go to hers, and they would go out for coffee and get to know each other. And he knew her favourite colour was purple, and that she didn't like rice, and that when the loneliness and depression of everything got to her she would curl up on the couch with him in nothing but old shorts and a sweatshirt and a glass of wine and just him being there made it better.

And she knew even though he was a soulless killing machine that he missed his younger sister Alison who had died years ago from leukaemia, and that he could never be bothered to do his laundry properly so he was always wearing odd socks, and that he liked to meet up with her after a mission to slip out of Bourne and into Jason again, even though they both knew full well that Jason was against the rules and shouldn't be there at all.

They had known each other for nine months when she learnt how his lips tasted like coffee and cinnamon, and how strong his body was, and how when they made love to each other he would whisper her name like a prayer, and how he would curl up around her as though he could protect her from everything in the world just by being there, and how his headaches weren't as bad the next morning.

One year, and he told her he loved her. She cried and told him she loved him too.

They manage to hide their relationship from everyone for over a year, when one day he went to a mission and doesn't return. Conklin was furious with her for not seeing the signs, but so was she. How did she miss them? Even thinking back, she cannot pick up anything different about him recently. It's hard when she sees him when they're in Paris, with Conklin, and he just looks at her. She realises it's true; there is nothing in his eyes when he looks at her. She's glad he doesn't kill her, and she goes home and cries until she can't cry anymore. So she gets on with her life, and reaches for his side of the bed when she has a nightmare, and then rolls over and cries until she falls back asleep. She misses him more than she is willing to admit to anyone, least of all herself. But she still goes on living her life, and it's hard when she's feeling depressed and there's no one to share her wine with, but she manages, and that's just the way things work in her life. He has Marie now, and she's glad that if she can't make him happy then someone can.

When he has his gun pressed to her head and she is crying against the wall in Berlin, she is not crying only because she's scared. She's crying because she loves him, and because he doesn't know her, and because a year ago he would kiss her in the exact spot that the barrel of the gun is pressed against, and she almost wants him to pull the trigger right there and then.

Everything that happened three months ago is mainly a blur to her - the way he didn't remember anything, but at least now he knows she used to have some sort of significance in his life, and how he burst through that window and killed that assassin while she watched in the mirror, or how he told her he remembered the faces of everyone he ever killed. She wants to tell him that it was her who delivered him those orders, and that she could probably give him those names, but she doesn't. And then she is dying her hair and cutting it and he is getting her on a bus, and she wants to tell him everything but she cant, and it breaks her heart.

"_It gets easier."_ It would never get easier, not for her.

Having worked for the CIA she had the advantage of knowing how they would try to track her, and she could work her way around them. She went to Los Angeles first, because she knows they'll expect her to go overseas and because she wants to know what happens to him. She sees him on the news, and she can't help smiling. He's alive, and even if he doesn't know her, she's glad. She moves approximately every three weeks, sometimes more and sometimes less, because if she creates a pattern they can follow it. She goes from Los Angeles to Sicily, to Dublin to Cairo to Marseille to Madrid. She lives out of her backpack, which has basic clothes, some money, her laptop (for false passports) and a hairbrush; she can buy anything else she needs wherever she's staying. She works as a cleaner, a waitress, a checkout chick, any job that will pay for accommodation and food, jobs where people don't remember you. It's hard in the countries where she doesn't speak their language, but she has always had a gift for languages, and she gets by. She makes no friends, she doesn't talk to anyone. She spends a lot of time in parks; the places she stays are far from 5 star hotels (everything she owns is stolen in Cairo, but she just buys more). She changes her hair frequently, but she is letting it grow longer, so that she'll have more options with it; at the moment it is a colour somewhere between red and blonde, and it's wavy around her shoulders with a fringe sweeping across her face.

She has lost weight too. Sometimes she forgets to eat, because she no longer gets hungry, and she lives off of coffee. She knows there are bags underneath her eyes, but she can't sleep no matter what she tries. She hasn't smiled since she saw the news about him in that little coffee shop, and she cannot remember the last time she laughed, or even had a conversation. She is depressed, she knows it, and she goes and buys a knife from a store, intending to just end everything one and for all. She cant bring herself to do it the first time she tries, and the wounds don't go deep enough to end her life. But she keeps the knife, for self defence she tells herself, but really it's an escape plan for when (not if) she can't take it anymore. She isn't sure why she doesn't do it now.

She is in Vienna when he finds her.

The place she is staying at is a small dingy apartment flat with bad heating and even worse warm water. There is nothing there but a bed and her backpack on the ground. All the windows and doors are locked. He still manages to get in without her noticing. This worries her, but there's no time for that sort of thinking right now.

"Nicky," he says. She jumps and almost runs, but she would know his voice anywhere. He is sitting on the end of her bed.

"Jason," she says, and she can see the slight surprise in his eyes when she calls him by his first name, not his last. He hasn't remembered her.

"You still don't remember anything?" she asks quietly, sitting down and leaning against the wall.

"I remember before Treadstone, though that still comes back to me in pieces. I remember Alison, and my parents, and joining the military, and how I hated my ninth-grade math teacher. But I don't remember much about Treadstone." His facial expression doesn't change, but to Nicky he looks empty. Like her. "I remember a few of the assassinations, and meeting with Conklin. But nothing else."

She nods. That's okay. She doesn't like it, but she has long since accepted it. They sit in silence for a while, but it isn't awkward; they're reading each others facial expressions, their body language.

"I'm sorry for what happened in Berlin," he tells her finally. He sounds regretful. "I - I didn't -"

"It's okay," she said. She doesn't blame him. "You needed answers."

"I'm sorry for scaring you," he said. "I'm sorry for scaring you."

She is quiet for a moment. She wasn't crying because she was scared, but she can't really explain that to him now. "It's okay."

They are quiet again, until she cannot hold the question in any longer. "Why are you here?" she asks. "How did you find me?"

"It wasn't easy," he replies. "You've been doing a very good job. It took me a lot longer than I expected it would."

"You didn't answer my first question."

He is quiet for a moment, studying her face as though looking for something in it.

"I know all these things about you," he says. "And I don't know how. I just know them. You were picked straight out of school by Abbot and Conklin so that they could train you into the CIA's methods, and also because you look so easy to trust. You always smell of strawberries, your favourite colour is purple. You don't like rice, but you do like your coffee white with two sugars. You've always liked the smell of smoke, and you love to read. You speak at least five different languages, and you lost your virginity when you were 17, at your best friend's birthday party."

She stares at him, blushing slightly. He knows all her secrets, he just doesn't know her.

"You said … You said things were difficult for you, with me. What does that mean? How do I know these things about you? Why …" he asks quietly, with nothing but curiosity and confusion in his voice. He is giving her the option of not answering.

"It's nothing important," she mutters. She feels bad for lying to him, but how do you tell a man who doesn't know you that the two of you were in love? He knows she is lying, she can tell, but he doesn't press it. Maybe he doesn't really want to hear the answer either.

One week later, and he is still there at her dingy little apartment. She doesn't know what he's doing there; she's not sure he knows what he's doing there either, but she goes on with her life (which mainly consists of getting up, working for 16 hours and then coming home and getting whatever sleep she can, with coffee and the occasional half-meal in there somewhere), and he does whatever he does when she's out.

"I'm going to Denmark today," she tells him that morning, waking him up from his spot on the floor.

"Where in Denmark?" he asks. She shrugs.

"Probably Copenhagen," she says. There is nothing else to say, so she clears out the room, wipes her fingerprints, and leaves the apartment, going to the nearest train station in Vienna. When she finds one going to Paris, she boards it, and without a word he goes with her.

"How long are you going to stick around?" she asks. He shrugs.

"I don't know," he says. "There isn't anywhere else for me to go."

They spend the rest of the ride in silence, and the connecting ride to Denmark too. When she gets to Copenhagen, the first thing she does is go to a chemist and buy blonde hair dye.

"Blonde again?" he asks. She knows he was thinking of Paris, with Conklin, and that she might be easier to identify. She shrugs.

"Sort of. I'm not that great at dying my hair, so it'll probably look blonde-ish, with darker and lighter bits running through it. And besides, my hair was long and straight then. It's wavy and only to my shoulders now, and I have a fringe. It's not too risky." He seems to accept her reasoning, and nods with an attempt at a smile. It's been too long since she has smiled. She doesn't remember how to try and make one back.

The apartment is pretty much a concrete box with crappy plumbing and absolutely no heating. It has a bedroom with a double bed that she'll buy new sheets for and dispose of when she leaves, and a kitchen, a bathroom and a small square she assumes is the living room. He says he'll sleep there, and she thinks about how not so long ago they would have curled up on the bed together without any discussion at all. She ducks her head so that he doesn't see that on her face, but of course he does.

"What is it?" he asks her, concern in his voice. She just shakes her head.

"Nothing." Apparently he isn't accepting that this time.

"Nicky, what? If you want, I'll leave you alone, I'll go somewhere else -"

"No!" she protests. "No, that isn't … that's not … I don't mind you being here Jason." She knows he notices the use of his first name again, but he doesn't say anything about it.

"Why did you look so … upset?" They both know it isn't quite the right adjective, but he has never really been great with words. He used to tell her that words are instruments to lie with, whereas actions show your true intentions.

"It was just an old memory," she said. She hopes he wont press it. Of course, he does.

"A sad memory?"

"No. Not at all. I suppose it just makes me sad now."

His eyes search hers, and she hopes that he gets all the answers he needs from them, because she doesn't want to tell him anymore. He seems to see that. He doesn't ask anything else, but she can tell that he is wondering. Maybe someday she'll tell him or maybe some day he'll remember, but she mustn't get her hopes up. Hopes were foolish when you lived the way she did. Hopes just set you up for disappointment.

After they have been in Copenhagen for almost a week, she comes home from her job packing boxes in a factory, and he wants to talk to her.

"I spoke to Pamela Landy today," he says. She nods. She had liked Pam. She was determined and tough, but also reasonable and patriotic. Someone who did the right thing simply because it was right.

"How?" she asks, worrying about their safety.

"Don't worry," he assures her. "It was an untraceable disposable phone, and I didn't tell her we were together. But I don't think we need to worry about that too much anymore." She looks at him curiously, tilting her head. "I've been watching the CIA for the past few weeks, the best I can from Vienna and Copenhagen. It looks like Blackbriar has really closed down, for good now. And Pam assured me that the kill orders on us have been rescinded. She faxed me the files herself, they're real. She says that she's making sure no one is looking for us anymore. I don't think you need to keep hiding."

She isn't sure what she's feeling. Part of her is relieved, incredibly relieved, that she doesn't have to keep looking over her shoulder everywhere she goes. Part of her wonders if maybe he was just staying with her to protect her, and maybe he'll leave now, and part of her just feels incredibly lost. She's spent what has felt like her whole life but in reality has only been three months running. Her whole life was based around it. What would she do without it? She had no friends, no family, nothing. She didn't even have her own name anymore; Nicolette Parsons had died the moment she got on that bus three months ago. At the moment she is Annabelle Gallardo. She sits down on his makeshift bed on the ground beside him.

"What will I do now?" she asks him. He seems to have a suggestion, but he's keeping it to himself. "I don't have anything … I don't have a life outside running away. I can't just create one out of nowhere." She is panicking a little, she knows, and Jason reaches out and softly brushes her hand. It sends shivers down her spine, and she knows she should pull away, but his hand is warm and she feels so cold.

"You could come with me," he says quietly. "We should go somewhere …. Somewhere we don't have to worry. Somewhere that we can begin a new life. Or at least try. Somewhere permanent."

She barely believes what she's hearing. Go somewhere, create a life, with him? _Who else?_ she asks herself, and of course there is no one. He is not the only person she knows, but he is the only person who knows her. Even if he can't remember it.

"You would do that?" she asks, her voice trembling ever so slightly. "Just … go off somewhere with me?"

"Who else?" he says.

… … …

After another week in Copenhagen and they decide on a place. It is a small cottage in London. It isn't five star accommodation, but the heating and the warm water works, and he has vowed to fix the place up. She gets a job working in a book store walking distance away, which doesn't pay well but it doesn't matter because they have enough money from Treadstone hidden away in various accounts that she could probably retire now at 25 if she wanted. There is a coffee shop nearby, and a city park just around the corner.

While he works tirelessly on the house, she has taken it upon herself to fix up the small, overgrown garden they have. She supposes it must once have been beautiful, but it's gone wild now. There is a veranda being attacked by some sort of vine, and decides to tackle that first. It feels strange, looking around a place that she can now say is her own, that comes with some degree of permanency longer than three weeks. In some ways it's nice, but in others it's disconcerting. She feels unsafe, bound to be caught by the CIA, but she's also relieved to have stopped running, and she trusts Jason. He knows what he's doing far better than she does, and there isn't anyone else left in her life but him.

They had to change their identities again of course, but this time they get to at least keep some form of their name. He becomes Jason Davidson, and she becomes Nicole (Nicolette was too distinctive, and everyone can call her Nicky anyway) Kirsten. They are two friends from Ohio, USA, and they moved to London after a fire in a church killed both their families (they had researched this, and there actually was a fire, so it is believable).

After a month in London, he tells a joke with his dry occasional humour, and she smiles, and it feels incredibly wrong and incredibly right at the same time. It's just a small gesture, but he smiles back.

Another two weeks after that, and she has a conversation with someone other then Jason (they have become a lot more comfortable around each other in the past two months, and now she would almost call him a friend). Another lady who works at the bookstore, Amanda, approaches her asking about a book, asking if she's read it, and if so, is it any good? The book in fact is one of Nicky's favourites (she'd forgotten she had favourites), and they get into a conversation easily. Amanda is a single mother who thanks god everyday that the split with her ex-husband was a mutual decision, and he is still happy to pay for most of their daughter Jamiee's education, clothes, toys, etc. They arrange to meet for coffee over the weekend, Amanda saying she might have to bring Jaimee along too, and Nicky doesn't mind.

"Jason?" she calls through the house when she gets home. He is fixing panelling on the roof in the kitchen. The house looks ten times better than it did six weeks ago, but there is still more progress to be made, and the same with her garden.

"Nicky?" he walks out from the kitchen wearing just dirty jeans without a shirt, sweat dripping down his body, and she is reminded once again of how difficult it is to have been in a relationship with a man for a year who doesn't remember any of it, and then live in the same house as him. She bites her lip and wills herself _not_ to think of those long nights in Paris.

"I'm going to go out to coffee with a woman I met at work tomorrow. You're welcome to come too, if you'd like."

He smiles, and she knows it's because he's glad she's made a friend, and is slowly (very slowly) slipping out of the depression she's been feeling.

"I don't know," he says. "Are you sure?"

"Of course," she replies. "She wants to meet you." Jason raises his eyebrows at her. "I told her I was staying with a friend here in London, fixing up a cottage, and she was curious." He nods his approval and smiles, and she returns it, not without effort, but at least she's _making _the effort.

"Thanks Nicky," he says. "Maybe I will. Want a yoghurt?"

"Thanks," she says, and he brings her the yoghurt into the lounge room, where she is reading. She reads a lot these days, when she isn't gardening. It provides her an escape to forget about everything, and for that she is extremely grateful.

When she goes to meet Amanda (with Jason), her daughter Jaimee is there too. She is a small, red-haired six year old with golden freckles and a huge smile.

"Amanda," she says in greeting, and Amanda stands up.

"Nicky, hi! I'm so glad you could make it! Sorry about bringing Jaimee, her babysitter demands weekends off."

"That's fine," she says with a smile. "This is my friend Jason, the one I'm staying with."

"Hi!" Amanda greets him warmly. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Amanda and this is my daughter Jaimee."

"It's nice to meet both of you," he says, and he sounds sincere.

"You're Jaimee?" Nicky asks, sitting down next to the child. She grins and nods her head, her mouth full of biscuit, and all three of the laugh. "I'm Nicky," she introduces herself, "and this is my friend Jason."

"Hello, I'm Jay-mee," the small girl says with a huge smile and an exuberant personality. "I'm five and three-quarters! Can I go on the playground mummy?" she asks, gesturing towards the park across the street.

"Aw, no honey, maybe later," she apologises. "I don't want you getting lost."

"But mummy, you can see me from here!"

"Sorry sweetie, I don't want you being by yourself," she replies.

"If you'd like, I'll take her," Jason offers. Nicky looks at him in a bit of surprise, and Amanda looks at him like he's a godsend.

"Oh, would you?" she says.

"I'd be happy to," he says with a smile, and again he seems sincere. Nicky thinks he is. (She knows him better than he thinks, or remembers).

"Thankyou so much!" Amanda says.

"C'mon Jaimee," he says, bending down so that he's her height. "Let's go."

"Yay! Swings!" she squeals, and he laughs and takes one of her tiny hands in his, heading towards the playground. As a waitress comes over to take their orders, Nicky and Amanda watch him push Jaimee on the swing. The little girl looks delighted, screaming and laughing, and even he's laughing too, and it makes Nicky smile. She hasn't seen him laugh like that since Treadstone.

"The two of you must be happy together," Amanda says with a smile. Nicky looks at her in surprise.

"Oh, we're not … together. We're just friends."

"_Why?_" Amanda asks. "If I was living with a friend that looked like that and was a great guy, I'd at least try!"

"Things with Jason are … complicated," she says, and feels like laughing bitterly because 'complicated' doesn't really cover it.

"If you say so," Amanda says with a knowing smile, and sips her coffee the waitress just delivered.

Later that night back at the cottage, Nicky is sitting on the edge of the double bed, watching him make himself coffee. They only have one bed, but they both sleep so little that it doesn't matter much. On the occasional nights that they are both actually planning on sleeping, they take different blankets, and the bed is large enough that they don't get in each others way. Just friends.

"You've been spending a lot of time on your laptop," he observes. "What are you doing?"

She blushed slightly. "Writing."

"As in a book?"

She shrugs. "Maybe. I don't know. I'm not very good, but I enjoy it."

Jason smiles. "What's it about?"

"At the moment, it's a crime novel," she admits.

"You used to love crime novels he says with a smile, until he realises what he's just said, and the smile slips from his face. They stare at each other. "You … you used to read them before you went to bed," he whispers.

"Yeah, I did," she murmurs. Her mind is spinning, a hundred emotions at once. "How much do you remember?"

"I don't know," he says honestly. "I'm getting these tiny little glimpses. Flickers. I don't know."

She nods. "Okay."

Over the next few weeks, he'll sometimes come up to her and ask about something he remembers. Do you remember when I stumbled into your house at 3AM after a mission? Didn't you always used to hate game shows on TV? Didn't you used to have that teddy that was yours since you were a child? Once you almost killed me when I broke into your house to find my car keys, and you tried to stab me with the kitchen knife, right?

"Nicky," he said, walking up to her. She was outside, wrestling with a vine and a pair of secateurs.

"Yeah?" she asks distractedly, and keeps trying to cut. He rests a hand on top of hers, and she stops. They always avoid touching. It sends shivers of warmth through her. He doesn't say another thing, and she turns slowly to face him.

He kisses her softly. She doesn't know what to do, so she kisses him back. After a few moments, they break away. He smiles widely.

"I remember. I think … I think I remember everything."

She kisses him again.

… … …

I think I finished this about six months after I started it, and then posted it another three months later. In other words, this has been floating around in my 'complete' folder for quite a while now!

Reviews are appreciated.


End file.
